Maybe, Just Maybe
by ty-rant84
Summary: Spike remembers Fred


Title: Maybe, Just Maybe  
  
Author: Hannah Brackbill (ty-rant84)  
  
Summary: Spike remembers Fred.  
  
Rating: PG (mentions death)  
  
Characters: Spike, mentions Fred  
  
Spoilers/Warnings: The fifth season when they were all- oh, but that's telling. Spoilers of the fifth season. Deals with character death.  
  
Archiving: Fanfiction.net. Other than that, just let me know where to find it.  
  
Feedback: Ritual sacrifices must be made. Donations are appreciated.  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own green eggs and ham. I do not own the Angel Series. I do not own Angel either. I do not own a single beaver. (I sure wish I did, though. Those beavers are cute)  
  
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"There's a hole in the world. Feels like we should've known... should've known... should've known... known..."  
  
Spike jolted up and stayed sitting on his bed, panting unneeded air. Replaying in his mind, those few moments haunted him. The moments when he'd had to make the decision with Angel.  
  
He still couldn't quite comprehend what he'd done.  
  
Fred was gone. Dead.  
  
He'd killed thousands of people in his long existence, but none had hurt like this.  
  
He'd lost people he loved before. With Buffy, it had been hard, yet Spike was ready. She was a slayer. They die young. He'd known that going in.  
  
Fred, though. Sweet, little, babbling Fred. Gone forever.  
  
They couldn't even say goodbye to her.  
  
That ...thing animating her body couldn't be buried.  
  
Couldn't be laid to rest.  
  
It just walked and talked.  
  
Not really her.  
  
But so close. Almost made you want to believe. That she was still in there.  
  
She wasn't, though.  
  
The real Fred had been slowly cooked alive, from the inside out, until nothing remained but a hollow casing. Then, even that been taken away, by that demon.  
  
How could they even fight this evil?  
  
Could any of them stand to kill something with her face?  
  
Just to keep her image intact for a few days longer, would postpone the onslaught of grief and delude them for a little while more, and would therefore be welcome. Even if they knew, in their hearts, that she would never come back to "her boys", hope would remain until all remnants of her were gone.  
  
They were keeping her around for as long as possible. She couldn't end. When you... die. You're buried, or burned, hell, you could even be frozen. Anyway you wanted it. Fred had wanted to be buried. She wanted to be with the rest of her family in a little cemetery a few blocks away from where she grew up. That was what she wanted.  
  
Fred deserved that ending.  
  
To waste away into nothing. Slowly slipping away from their level of existence. To reach eternal rest. She had suffered enough without having evil desecrate her image.  
  
She had suffered through every cough, test, hallucination, fear, only to lose in the end.  
  
She didn't deserve to be treated like that. So carelessly.  
  
She was the one that Spike needed.  
  
When he'd first shown up here, she hadn't known him but still comforted him when he worried, kept trying to help him when everyone else had given up, looking diligently for him that time he'd disappeared.  
  
Everything she'd done since he'd met her was done to the utmost success.  
  
Because she wouldn't give in. She wouldn't let people down.  
  
Spike near thought he would give anything to bring her back.  
  
Girl like her should die an old lady, lying all wrinkled in her bed.  
  
Not like Fred had endured.  
  
And it was all because of them. Spike and Angel.  
  
Sure, tens of thousands would have died, but she wouldn't have been one of them.  
  
She would have lived.  
  
Fred would still be bouncing down the halls, yammering on about a scientific theory, looking at Wesley all lovey-dovey like.  
  
She would never do any of those now.  
  
Not ever. Spike had let it all slip away. Let her slip away. Right through his fingers.  
  
He lay back down and curled into a ball.  
  
Maybe she'd be back.  
  
Maybe, in the morning, he'd find her.  
  
Maybe...just maybe. 


End file.
